If you know anything about Melbourne, you'll know that the most Melbourne thing in Melbourne,
is Flinders Street station, hub of the suburban railway network, and probably the city's most recognisable building.
One of the best known features of this iconic structure, is this set of clocks mounted over the main
station entrance on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets.
"Meet me under the clocks” is a famous Melbourne expression, and it's been a traditional meeting place
for Melburnians for well over 100 years. In this video we're going to take a little
look at the history of the clocks, why some of them are outdated or wrong
- and some lines are missing completely, and what purpose they actually serve in the public transport world of today.
So first of all, what are the clocks for? Well they don't tell the time,
like this one - or this one, they show departuretimes of trains, with each clock showing the
next departure for a specific line. There are 13 clocks in total, with 9 mounted above
the main entrance, and 4 mounted off to the left above this side entrance.
Each clock has a small brass plate reading ‘Edmiston & O'Neill Engineers 1916,’
and I initially assumed that was when they were made – but apparently those plates just mark the date
of an overhaul. From what I can tell, the clocks are actually much older, being imported
from England way back in the 1860s. They were initially fitted to the original station building,
and were relocated to the current building when it was completed in 1910. And this wasn’t
the only entrance to feature these clocks – there were also a full set mounted above
the Elizabeth St and Degraves St entrances, but those ones didn’t make it into the modern era.
The way the clocks are labelled has changed many times over the years, as lines opened
and closed or were extended. But at some point the updates stopped, and the clocks are now
stuck somewhat in a previous time – so let's have a look at that. From left to right, the
clocks currently show departures for the Lilydale line, Belgrave, Glen Waverley, Alamein, Pakenham & Cranbourne,
Frankston, Sandringham, Williamstown, Altona, St Albans, Broadmeadows, Upfield and Werribee.
Now the St Albans and Broadmeadows lines are no longer called that -
St Albans was extended to Sydenham in 2002 and again to Sunbury in 2012.
And in fact trains can't even terminate at St Albans any more.
The Broadmeadows line was extended to Craigieburn in 2007.
These clocks do display departure times for Sunbury and Craigieburn, but the
lettering has never been updated to reflect the new line names. It might be reasonable
to assume that these haven't been changed due to heritage concerns, but if we look at
some of the other clocks we can see that probably isn't the case. Werribee has it's own clock,
which only joined the suburban network in 1983, and the St Kilda and Port Melbourne line
clocks were replaced when those lines closed in 1987. In fact looking at old pictures,
those two lines were on the two clocks at the right hand end, so the current Werribee line
clock is the old St Kilda line one. Meanwhileover at the other end of the main entrance
we have a clock for the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines. Cranbourne only became a suburban terminus
when it was electrified in 1995, and that appears to be the most recently updated clock.
So if the clocks are 'preserved,' they're preserved in 1995 condition.
Incidentally – or maybe not – the network was privatised between then and the next line extension.
I have no idea if those two facts are connected, but certainly the clocks are frozen in time
at the end of government operation. Another glaring anomaly is that there are two lines
which don't have a clock at all, being the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines. This is because
before the City Loop opened in the early 80s, those two lines used to depart from a separate
station known as Princes Bridge which was across the road – and presumably they had
their own departure clocks over there. But they were never added to the main Flinders Street
display after Princes Bridge closed. So how easily could they be updated to reflect
the modern era? Well, actually very easily. While maintaining the current heritage style,
the first step would be updating the two lines which have been extended, changing St Albans to Sunbury,
and Broadmeadows to Craigieburn. What to do with the Hurstbridge and Mernda lines
is a slightly more difficult question, if we assume there's no space to just add two more clocks.
I would suggest combining the Altona and Werribee clocks, as these essentially
operate as the one line today, and there's already a precedent for combining lines with
Pakenham and Cranbourne. Then I'd combine the Belgrave and Lilydale clocks –
it's not ideal, but they are interlined all the way out to Ringwood, and I don't think there's
a better candidate. That would give us two free clocks to use for Mernda and Hurstbridge,
and then we'd be pretty much aligned with the current situation. Alternatively, the
Pakenham, Cranbourne and Sunbury lines are all going to disapear from this station when
the Melbourne Metro tunnel opens in a couple of years time, so that will free up some clocks
for a better reorganisation then. Now, the clocks are double sided – you can read them
from inside while queuing at the booking office.. for anyone who still does that.. as well as
from the outside. On the inside, you can see each clock has a small hole at the base.
This is because the clocks were originally operated manually, by a dude with a long metal rod
who changed each clock as required – and that would have been a full time job.
But in 1983 – the year the Victorian Railways ceased to exist - the clocks were automated, and today they’re synchronised
with the live departure information just like any other display. Legend has it that there
was an attempt to replace them with an electronic display in the 80s and the clocks were taken down,
but the public outrage was so great that they were put back up the very same day.
So.. how well do the clocks actually work at the moment? Are they accurate?
As a commuter on one of the lines that doesn't currently have a clock, I must confess I'd never paid
all that much attention to them. So as a bit of a sample to test their accuracy, I stopped
by Flinders Street after work one day and photographed all the clocks over a short period
at 3:30 in the afternoon on a weekday, and here's what I found:
Of the 13 clocks, a grand total of.. 4 of them.. were showing the correct time for the next train on that line,
on both sides of the clock. Those were Werribee, Broadmeadows, Williamstown and Sandringham.
Two of the clocks – Frankston and Altona, were just showing 12 o'clock on both sides – I assume this
is the default position when the clock isn't receiving any data. For the Frankston line
this was because trains were being replaced by busses on the day of my visit, which is
a level of nuance not easy to show on a clock. Altona doesn't have such a good excuse –
in the mid 80s the Altona line was joined up with the Werribee line forming a loop,
and today, the Altona loop is considered part of the Werribee line, and is included on Werribee line timetables.
My guess is that this clock just hasn’t been set up to get it's data
from the Werribee line, but really it should just show the next train running via Altona
– in this case it should be showing 3:46. Now, I assumed that the two sides of each
clock would be mechanically linked – effectivelyeach a single clock with two faces,
however, 6 of the clocks were showing a different time on either side during my visit. The Pakenham/Cranbourne
and the Alamein clocks were both showing the correct next departure outside, but sitting
on the default 12:00 inside. Meanwhile Upfield, St Albans and Glen Wavlerley were all correct
inside the building, but oddly showing 6:00 or 9:00 outside. The Belgrave clock was showing
3:38 on both sides – which doesn't match up with any departure to Belgrave, but there
is a 3:38 Blackburn which is on the Belgrave line so it might have been referencing that.
Back when the clocks were operated manually there was additional information about specific
trains displayed under each clock, which would have been able to tell us it’s a Blackburn train,
but these didn’t make into the automated era. Finally we have the Lilydale clock which
was by far the most confused. It was showing 3:44 outside, and 3:51 inside.
Neither of those times were the next depature for Lilydale, which was due out at 3:36.
There was a 3:44 departure but it's a Belgrave train, so maybeit's looking at that, and 3:51 is
correct for the NEXT Lilydale departure after overlookingthe 3:36. Now you might assume some of these
discrepancies were due to late running, but I cross referenced this information with other
live sources on the day, and all those trains were running on time.
So in summary, 4 clocks were fully correct, 5 were right on one side only, and the rest were.. complicated.
All the outside clocks also have a little platform indicator, and most of those seemed to be accurate,
except the Glen Waverley and Frankston ones were blank, the Altona one was blanked out,
and the Upfield one was showing.. Platform.. lowercase a? Which should be showing 5.
A week later I went past again at the same time and the situation was basically the same –
except the outside Lilydale clock had now crashed to 12:00, and a shoe had appeared between
the Belgrave and Glen Waverley lines. So, I think it's safe to say that in their current state,
the clocks are fairly inaccurate, and probably not playing any significant role
in presenting useful information to passengers. The original concept was a good one –
the clocks are clearly visible from across the street, and regular passengers would no doubt
memorise the position of the relevant clock and it would let you know if you needed
to rush for your train or not as you approached the station. Of course, for the clocks to
be meaningful you also need to know what the time is, and for that you need to look all
the way up to this clock here – which isn't easy to do when you're standing right in front
of the station. The clocks date from a time when many people would have had a wrist or
pocket watch, which would have made for an easy comparison, and of course today most
people would be pulling out their phone. It seems to me that the clocks would be a lot
more usable if there was a clock showing the time much closer to them, like, maybe right here.
They also date from an era when average literacy was much lower, and a simple clock
in a predictable position would have been much easier for the average person to interpret
than the modern displays which are jam packed with text and additional information.
Of course, today something of the opposite problem may exist, where literacy rates are very high,
but the number of people who can fluently read an analog clock with roman numerals would be slowly declining.
Another usability issue is the position of the four clocks around the corner -
it's a bit out of the way, and not many people actually approach the
building from that angle. But to be fair, I can't see many better places to put them.
I should clarify that, I doubt anyone is actually relying on these clocks for their departure information -
there’s a modern digital display just beyond the clocks, and another one
just beyond the ticket barriers. Finally, when researching this video I had one last question:
that famous phrase “meet me under the clocks” - does anyone actually do that any more?
As a lifelong Melburnian I can honestly say I don't think I've ever arranged to meet anyone there,
and I kind of assumed that it's something that would have died out with the
advent of mobile phones. However, I asked around friends and family and apparently my
experience is atypical – nearly everyone said they'd used it as a meeting place at some point.
And then, while filming some timelapses for this video – intended just as general filler footage,
I noticed something quite remarkable. Sped up, it becomes very obvious
that the meeting place is still alive and well, with an almost constant stream of people
arriving alone, then departing with another person or group.
So the Flinders Street clocks are an iconic Melbourne feature that might be a good place to meet a friend,
but aren't really doing the job they were designed for any more.
However it would only take a few small changes to transform them from a snapshot of the mid 90s,
to something that might actually be useful again. If you’d like to learn more about the history of
the Flinders Street building I highly recommend this book, which includes a chapter covering the departure clocks.
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon who help make these videos possible,
and thanks for watching!